


Familiarity

by lateralus112358



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 01:46:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13284339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lateralus112358/pseuds/lateralus112358
Summary: A girl travels to an ancient temple to find her spirit companion





	Familiarity

Thousands, if not tens of thousands of years old, the temple stands in the center of the island, now largely buried by the jungle that had sprouted around it. A sense about it remains, a hint of the majesty and grandeur it must have once held; the pinnacle of the ancient civilization, opulent and sanctified; a place of power. Now, its outer walls have crumbled to mere rubble. The cobbled pathways of the courtyard lay mostly invisible beneath verdant growth. Vines spiral up pillars of marble and stone, and trees reach far above all else, blanketing the once magnificent temple in ever-changing shadows.

The inner sanctum, according to legend decorated by an elaborate dome of colored glass, now retains only the stone walls rising to about chest-height on its back and sides, a similarly degraded stone floor, and almost at the very back of the enclosure, an statue, where prayers and supplications were offered. In these ancient times, it was said, warriors would pray here, begging the goddess’s favor, asking her to grant them a familiar, a denizen from another plane of existence, bound to them, possessed of many magical powers and arcane knowledge. These familiars were noble, and powerful, and all granted them were considered to be extraordinarily lucky, sometimes even holy. A privilege, then, that one would feel extremely honored by.

But not you. Your familiar is nothing like those in the stories.

Yours is an obnoxious jackass.

“This is getting ridiculous, Sameen.”

You grunt, hurtling past trees, nearly getting tangled in vines that snake around your feet like they were possessed by one of the seid. Ahead, a fast-flowing stream cuts through the landscape, carving a shallow ravine. You leap, clearing the gulch, hitting ground on the other side, and keep running. You duck between two close tree trunks, veer sharply off to one side, then stop, crouching behind low hanging branches, large, spoon-shaped leaves on their ends.

You hear a voice from right beside you. “We’re bound together, you know.”

Not even bothering to curse at her, you take off again, throwing yourself through the jungle as fast as you can. You see a large tree up ahead, the lowest branches higher than your head, and make a quick decision. You run straight for the tree, leaping up as you approach, hands just barely grasping the lowest branch. You use your momentum to swing your legs up and over, and stand up, already grabbing the next branch above you.

When you’re about fifty feet up, you stop for a breath.

“That _means_ you can’t get away from me.”

You whip around so fast you lose your balance, and shoot your hands out to grab onto another branch to keep yourself from falling. Your stupid familiar sits on a branch slightly above and across from you, looking incredibly unconcerned. She also looks human. One head. Two arms. Two legs, presently swinging over the edge of the branch she’s seated on. Yes, she definitely has legs, although you continue looking at them for a while, as if trying to make sure. She definitely appears to be solid, and moves like humans do, but that doesn’t account for her ability to just appear right next to you. From her appearance you’d guess she’s about your age, just on the verge of adulthood, but you don’t really know how much appearance can be used to determine age for a possibly-ancient spirit. Not that she looks particularly ancient or spirit-y. 

She certainly didn’t _act_ like you expected a familiar to act. Upon being summoned, she’d introduced herself as Root, and stared at you in a way that seemed more in line with someone trying to court you than a mystical spirit companion. Familiars were supposed to have magical abilities, but Root had seemed loath to display any, and all your questions were met with smirks, half answers, and thinly-veiled come-ons. You’d tried going back over to the altar, and taking your offering back, you even tried speaking the words again to get a different familiar, or at least return the one you had (hopefully mistakenly) received.

There had been no supernatural response, and Root, seeming amused by the whole thing, told you that you were bound together permanently now, which had incensed you even further.

Which was when you had tried dashing off into the jungle as fast as you could, hoping you could get away from her. No such luck. Plus you’d left your pack with most of your supplies at the temple. You still have your sword, at least. 

“The bond also means I can’t get away from you, even if I wanted to,” Root adds. “Which I don’t.”

You decide to try a new tactic. You’ll just ignore her until she goes away. She says that she can’t, but everything about her screams that she’d lie about anything if it suited her. Looking away from her, not saying anything, you begin to descend the tree.

***

Your new tactic is not working. Root follows along behind you blithely, sometimes talking to you, sometimes talking to herself, sometimes humming, sometimes kicking branches along your path. It doesn’t help that you weren’t very meticulous in noting your course your first time through the jungle, or in your dash away from Root. You don’t even know how to get back to the temple, much less the small inlet where you moored your boat. Figures that this would happen to you. Even if you manage to find your way back, you’ll still have to go home admitting you’d failed.

Or even worse, you think, glancing back at Root, admitting you didn’t.

You don’t know what went wrong. You did everything like the stories said you were supposed to. You passed your trials, you brought an offering, even though you think the goddess is _probably_ not even real, you spoke the right words. Maybe it’s just part of your curse? Which is another thing you don’t think is real.

The temple displays no signs of reappearing, nor does there seem to be any end to the jungle, which is now cast in shadows as the sun sets. You’ll have to camp here tonight. You stop, and sit down, leaning against the trunk of a large tree.

Root, still standing, looks over at you. “You know there are seid around here.”

“So leave.”

She doesn’t. She sits down a few feet away from you. “I know where your boat is.”

You turn around to look at her. “Take me there.” She just shrugs. “Why are you like this??” You demand. “You’re supposed to help me!”

Root scowls. “You haven’t been very nice to me, Sameen. I have feelings.”

“I don’t.” You turn away from her. Your stomach growls. Great, now on top of everything, you’re hungry. Unfortunately, you left most of your supplies back at the temple, including some wrapped strips of salted meat, which won’t keep much longer. All you’ve got on you are a few dried pieces of meat, leftover from what you’d brought across on your boat. You turn back to Root. “Fine. What do you want?”

“I want you to take me with you.”

You frown. “What?”

“When we get to your boat. I want to go with you.”

“I thought you said I couldn’t get rid of you? Do I have a choice?”

She rolls her eyes, like this is the dumbest thing she’s ever heard. “Only while we’re on the island. I can’t choose to leave on my own, you have to let me.”

You contemplate this. Can you find the boat on your own? Probably not, judging by your attempts so far. You could always tell Root you’ll let her come, and then take off without her, but something about that doesn’t sit well with you, and besides, if you make a deal with a spirit and then break it, something bad will probably happen. You’re not stupid, you know how these things work.

“All right,” you say eventually. “You can come back with me. But after that, you go your way and I go mine. Deal?” You’re not even sure if that’s possible, or if Root will still be permanently tethered to you, but it’s worth a try.

“Deal,” Root nods. 

“Good,” you say, stretching, and reaching into a pocket to pull out the dried strips of meat. They don’t look appetizing, but they’re all you’ve got, so you start eating.

Root clears her throat.

“What?”

“You’re not going to share?”

You give her a baffled look. “You’re a spirit thing, aren’t you? Do you even need to eat?”

She just tilts her head at you, and you sigh and hand her some of the meat. “I have extrahuman powers,” she says, chewing. “But I’m not a spirit. My physical form is real enough. I mean, you could touch me, if you wanted.”

“What?”

“Just letting you know. In case you’re interested.”

You are mildly interested and this makes you angry. Instead, you get up, and start to gather some dry leaves and branches to make a fire. Root watches you, but doesn’t move to help. Only after you have the branches set into a small pyre, leaves underneath for kindling, do you remember that your oil, flint, and tinder are all still in your pack. “Hey,” you say to your familiar. She doesn’t respond. “ _Root_.” She looks over at you. You gesture at your not-yet-fire. “Do your ‘extrahuman’ powers include making fires?”

She moves, crouching over your pile of sticks, reaching her hands underneath, small flames appearing over her palms, catching on the leaves, and soon a healthy fire is going, making a small space of light in the rapidly-darkening jungle. Seid are afraid of fire, so hopefully this will keep the two of you from being murdered in the night.

Or at least one of you.

***

“You slept a long time,” Root remarks, as you groggily pull yourself off the hard ground, looking up at the jungle, an explosion of greens and yellows lit by the sun. “It’s not like you need your beauty sleep,” Root adds, and looks very pleased with herself for the comment.

You stand up, stretch, and bind your hair back with a tie from your pocket. “All right,” you tell your familiar. “We need to go back to the temple and pick up my pack first.”

“You’re not going to try to send me back again, are you?” Root asks, an eyebrow raised.

“Can I?”

“Nope,” she smiles. “This way!”

***

“So why did you come here, Sameen?”

You push a low-hanging branch out of your way as you tramp through the jungle. Like the first time you passed through, you note how different this island is from where you grew up. The jungle near your village had been mostly cut down, and even the parts that remained were much more sparsely populated than this one. Not too mention cooler, and less humid. Everything around here feels like it’s been soaked in water, so much that the excess from the rain has nowhere to go and just stays in the air. “Do we have to talk?” You ask, as Root weaves through the jungle.

“We’re bound together for life, Sam, it seems like we should try to get to know each other a bit.”

“We’re bound together until I get home,” you grumble. “Remember?” 

Root stops so suddenly that you run into her, crushing your face against her back.

“What now?” You ask, stepping back, rubbing your nose.

“I can’t remember how to get to the temple,” Root turns to look at you with a mournful expression. “My magic only works if my familiar talks to me.”

You recognize that this ‘fact’ about her magic is clearly bullshit. You also recognize that she will doggedly persist with this bullshit, and you’re less patient than she is. “Fine, we can talk,” you acquiesce, and Root beams, turns around, and continues through the jungle. “And what do you mean _your_ familiar?”

“You’re my familiar just like I’m yours, obviously.” Root says. “Well, technically I guess we’re _un_ familiars right now, but that’s why we need to talk.”

You frown, suddenly realizing something. “You don’t actually know how this works either, do you?” You accuse.

“Of course not,” Root says in a flippant tone. “It’s been a thousand years since a human came here. This is new for both of us. Which,” she holds back a branch, allowing you to pass, then walks to the front again. “Leads me back to my first question. Why did you come here?”

“…Something I needed to do.” You say eventually.

“You’re not very good at this ‘sharing’ thing,” Root chides. 

“Maybe I just needed to get away from home,” you say, and change topics. “So what can your magic do, other than find temples and start small fires?”

“I don’t know,” Root replies. “We can try experimenting some later, if you want.”

“You don’t know how your own magic works?”

“We don’t have magic until we come here,” Root says distractedly. “And it’s been a long time since there was anyone to teach us. Anyway,” she adds more cheerily. “Here we are!”

The ruined temple looks just the same as it did yesterday, stone floors and walls now roofed by jungle canopy. You see your pack laying over by the altar, and go to pick it up. Your oil and flint are still there, along with other various items you’d brought with you, and surprisingly, the wrapped meat is still there as well. You were pretty sure some sort of animal would have gotten at it during the night. Maybe the temple’s residual magic scares them away? “Let’s go,” you say to Root. “We can make another fire and cook this when we get to the boat.”

Root nods, and leads you through what used to be corridors in the temple, though now you can just step over what’s left of the wall between them rather than walking down them, and out through a largely disintegrated doorway. 

“So why did you get chosen to be my familiar?” You ask Root as you walk. She looks back at you to respond, then stops, mouth half-open. You’re about to ask what she’s doing, when one of the vines you just stepped over wraps itself tightly around one of your ankles. So that’s why your stored meat was untouched. 

The seid caught everything else that came through.

The vine around your ankle goes taut, and you crash to the ground, dropping your pack as the creature drags you across the jungle floor. Rocks and branches scrape against your back as you try to reach your sword, and you see that Root’s darting after you, trying to catch up to the seid that’s inhabiting these vines. You manage to draw your sword from its sheath, but can’t get a clear cut at the vine around your ankle that’s tugging you along the ground.

Seid eat their prey like spiders, wrapping them in a cocoon of vines that subdue and eventually dissolve the unwary victim. You grit your teeth, and try to get a shot at your own leg instead. Better to lose one than get eaten by this thing.

Root leaps across you, hands alight with flames, which she constricts around the vine pulling you. The creature lets out an ear-piercing shriek, and suddenly your motion stops, the grip on your leg slackening as the seid tries to escape Root’s fiery grasp. She lets it go, and grabs your arms, pulling you to your feet. “Are you all right?” 

You nod. “Come on, we need to get out of here.” You tug on her arm, not sure where you’re heading, as long as it’s away from here. You honestly hadn’t thought you’d encounter a seid here; they’re almost never seen back home, and you sort of thought all the claims about them on this island were exaggerations. Apparently not. At least you’re learning things.

“Sameen, your pack!” Root pulls away from you, running to where your pack had slipped away from you.

“Just leave it, Root,” you call, frustrated, “We don’t know when that thing’ll -“ 

A storm of vines bursts from the jungle, wrapping around Root’s arms, legs, torso, and neck, lifting her into the air and pulling her back into the jungle. “Sameen, run!” She yells.

You race for your pack, digging through it frantically, before coming up with your oil, flint, and tinder, and then run full speed into the jungle after the seid and Root. The heart of a seid is always located in one tree, even though as time goes on their influence spreads to the surrounding plant life, pulling them into its own lifecycle. All you have to do is find that tree and kill the thing, but you have no idea where it would be. Normally, it would be close to the vines the creature utilizes, but you’ve never heard of one with as many vines or as far a reach as this one has. You curse yourself for being so stupid. They’ve been here uncontested for nearly a thousand years; this thing could have half the jungle under its control. You continue to run, barely keeping Root in sight. She tries to burn the vines again, but the damage is minimal, and soon the creature figures out to restrict her arms so the flames can’t reach it.

As you pelt through the over-and-undergrowth, branches whipping against your face unheeded, you open the bottle of oil and clumsily pour it along the length of your sword. You drop the bottle, reach into your pocket and pull out the flint and tinder, quickly realizing there’s no way you can manage to get it lit while holding your sword, and running, and trying not to lose track of Root.

“Root!” You yell, adrenaline pumping through you, causing you to gain on the retreating seid. “Fire! Make fire!” Her hands burst with flames that don’t reach the seid’s vines. You push even closer, close enough to raise your sword up to Root’s hands. The oil-soaked blade bursts into flame, and you swing it at the vines holding Root’s feet. The creature shrieks again, losing its grip on Root as you sever more vines with your flaming sword. Root tumbles to the ground as the vines strike towards you, one wrapping around your sword arm. You toss the sword to your other hand, grab it, and slice the vine. The severed end loses its grip on your arm. More and more vines fling themselves at from nearby trees, seeking to grab you, but you weave and dodge, hacking and sawing them apart with your still-flaming sword. “It’s not running anymore!” You yell to Root. She looks at you questioningly, and you call, dodging a vine that tried to wrap around your neck, “The heart’s got to be close! Find it while I distract the thing!” Root nods.

The flames dancing on your sword die out, and the seid’s vines grow more confident, whipping in quick and raising welts and slashes across your skin. You still manage to cut off a few, but you mostly focus on keeping them from grabbing you again, and drawing them back away from Root.

Suddenly the vines stop attacking you. Instead, they start racing towards Root, who’s crouched a dozen yards away, flaming hands pressed to the trunk of a tree. She must have found it. 

Pushing your protesting limbs on, you pelt towards Root, as she’s grabbed yet again, vines pulling her away from the trunk. The damage is done, though, as you drive your sword into the wood as hard as you can, the blade piercing through the charred and weakened wood, sinking into something soft inside. The seid emits a sound so painful you drop your sword to cover your ears with your hands, diving to the ground, trying to get away from the blinding sound.

And then it’s quiet. 

You look up to see Root, face first on the ground where the vines had dropped her. Those limbs of the seid themselves lie limply around you, bereft of their mind. You pull yourself to your feet, and shake Root’s shoulder.

“I’m sore,” she groans, rolling over. “Will you give me a massage?”

Lacking the energy to respond, you just pull her to her feet.

***

You make most of the trip back to your boat in silence. You recover your pack, and use the few bandages you’d brought on yours and Root’s most pressing wounds. You'd intended to leave this island as soon as possible, but when you reach the boat, and sit down on the sandy shore by the inlet, you fall asleep almost immediately.

***

“Some people say I’m cursed,” you say, leaning forward and then pulling back on the oars. The island, behind you, will be growing smaller and smaller as you pull away. Your home, ahead of you, grows steadily larger. A vast expanse of water lies to either side of you, sparkling lightly from the sun overhead. “Because I don’t get scared. Or… feel things.”

Your familiar sits on the other side of boat, looking out at the water, occasionally turning back to glance at you. “So that’s why you came here?”

“Yeah.”

“So…” Root says. “You tried to prove you weren’t different by doing something everyone else was too scared to do?” She looks over at you. “Sameen, I think you’re amazing, but that’s the dumbest plan ever.”

“Wasn’t trying to prove I wasn’t different,” you grunt. “Just that it’s… useful for someone to be like me.”

Root looks satisfied, like this was the answer she was looking for. She reaches a hand down into the water. “You know,” she says offhandedly. “The goddess doesn’t send us.”

“What?”

“Maybe she used to. I don’t know. But she didn’t send me. I chose to come.” She looks up at you. “I chose you.”

You don’t say anything for a while, and focus on pulling the oars. Your arms are still exhausted from yesterday’s bout. 

“We’ve got an extra bed in my house,” you say eventually. “If you want to stick around for a while.”

Root smiles. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

Root puts both her hands over the sides of the boat, trailing them through the water. In a moment, the boat speeds up, cutting quickly through the water, even when you let go of the oars.

“What the hell?” You demand. “You could do this the whole time?!”

“Sorry, Sameen,” she says in a voice that doesn’t sound particularly apologetic. “I thought it would take longer to convince you. By the way,” she adds with a smirk. “What would we need an extra bed for?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to everyone who reads or comments!
> 
> Also, does anyone know if it’s possible on this site to change the text background within a story? One of the things I’m working on has sections where I’d like the background black, and the text green, like an old computer command line. If nothing else, I can just screenshot those sections and embed them as images, but if there is a way to do it natively that anyone knows about, please let me know! OK that’s all for now.


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